Valiant
by Pacmayne
Summary: Percy Jackson finds himself stranded in a city full of dead people after his parents leave on a trip and don't come back. Communications are down, there's chaos in the streets, and there's only so much food. Now, he's at a crossroads: stay in New York, his home, and fight for it, or hit the road in search of his mom. He just doesn't think he can make the journey. CHARACTER DEATH.


**Before I start this fic, I want to inform all of you that this fic will have major, major character death in it—deal with it.**

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**l. Alone**

It definitely, _without a doubt_, was _not_ the first time he'd done this. In fact, he had done it so much that he'd lost track of how many times he'd done this; he just knew that he'd done it enough for it to become nearly effortless. He didn't even feel the fear or the regret he'd once felt from carrying out this task. He hardly even noticed the _putrid_ smell that invaded his nostrils_—_this was _normal_ now. A necessary something done for the sake of survival.

_Then what stopped him?_

The young man paused, wiping at his sweaty brow with his forearm; in the process, he brushed his hair out of his eyes. With the blazing summer sun beating down on his neck, he gazed at the broken body laying in the dead grass before him, at the grey, decaying skin that clung to thin bones. The dusty black clothes, reduced to near threads, hung off the dead man's painfully skinny frame; _a Chili's uniform_, he recognized wistfully, thinking of a time before the Turn. _How strange.__  
_

The young man's eyes wandered to a white name tag pinned to the dead man's shirt:

_Aron_.

His eyes hardened just the slightest bit; _his name was Aron. _He let his gaze linger on Aron's_—the dead man's__—_rotting face, at his milky eyes glazed over from the infection, eyes that stared unblinkingly into the young man's own eyes. He turned away.

With an air of finality, he shouldered his heavy backpack, tightened the straps, and continued on along the old dirt path that led to his temporary camp. He made sure that he didn't look back, focusing on the crunch of the gravel under his hiking boots; he made sure that he'd forget about this Aron_—that this never happened._

He kept his eyes on his surroundings, cautiously watching the tree line and avoiding anything remotely suspicious. He knew from experience to keep his mind focused on the present no matter how _up to it_ he felt, but he couldn't help the thoughts pulling at him from all directions, tugging at his conscience like persistent mosquitos.

_His name was Aron._

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_-—Valiant—-_

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**Much, much earlier ...**

Percy Jackson had been waiting alone in the seventh floor room of his apartment building for twenty hours.

The front door was locked and blocked with a large couch. In the gloomy living room, the flat-screen TV was still turned on, although the picture showed nothing but the words "no signal" shining into the darkness and bouncing around a black screen. The dimly lit apartment was in disarray, every cupboard opened wide and empty, miscellaneous objects spilling out of a closet in the hallway.

Canned and bagged food had been stacked in a messy pile on the dining room table. A piece of notebook paper read in sloppy handwriting: _63 __canned food and 27 bagged food._

In the kitchen, the bright ceiling light flickered ominously. It was there, where Percy himself sat on a stool at the bar, his hands folded in his lap and his leg twitching uncomfortably. He stared intensely at his iPhone 4, which lay in front of him on the countertop. A M1911 pistol sat next to the device, along with a box of .45 ACP bullet cartridges.

A sliding glass door was left ajar, the dark reddish-orange glow of the city filtering in, and the terrible noises from Manhattan echoed from down below. Screams of pain and terror emitted from the poor citizens on the streets every other minute, gunshots rang out in random bursts, and explosions shook the buildings. Percy glanced over almost periodically, wincing when the screams got worse and flinching when the explosions got closer.

Yet, he didn't get up to close the door to block out the noises; he was too numb from his terror. He was too afraid of what he might see if he looked down at the streets. His mind raced with frantic, _slightly_ pessimistic thoughts—

_This is happening—this is fucking happening. I'm sitting here, alone in this kitchen, alone in my apartment, alone in the apocalypse—the fucking apocalypse—and they're real. They're fucking real. Zombies are fucking real_.

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**This first chapter is just a test to see how many people like this idea and want more. I hope you enjoyed, and remember to review and follow and all that good stuff. Otherwise, I'll feel discouraged. :(**


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